Table Of ContentMethodology and Research Practice in Southeast Asian
Studies
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Methodology and Research
Practice in Southeast Asian
Studies
Edited by
Mikko Huotari, Jürgen Rüland and Judith Schlehe
University of Freiburg, Germany
Editorial matter and selection © Mikko Huotari, Jürgen Rüland and Judith
Schlehe 2014
Individual chapters © Respective authors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-39753-9
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First published 2014 by
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction: Fostering Methodological Dialogue in 1
Southeast Asian Studies
Mikko Huotari
Part I 25
1 Moving Theory and Methods in Southeast Asian Studies 27
Goh Beng-Lan
2 Southeast Asian Studies: The Conundrum of Area and 44
Method
Victor T. King
Part II 65
3 Doing Anthropological Fieldwork with Southeast Asian 67
Characteristics? Identity and Adaptation in the Field
Deasy Simandjuntak and Michaela Haug
4 Performative Ethnography: Observant Participation in 91
Southeast Asia
Eric Haanstad
5 What Does a Gender Relations Approach Bring to 107
Southeast Asian Studies?
Kathryn Robinson
6 Learning from Locals: Doing Interviews in Southeast Asia 128
Paruedee Nguitragool
7 Political Analysis and the Southeast Asian Press: Decoding 144
Meaning and Tracing Events
Jürgen Rüland, Jarno S. Jian Hui Lang and York A. Wiese
v
vi Contents
8 Bridging Historical Analysis and Strategic Choice in Area 167
Studies: An Analytic Narrative of Volatile Politics in
Thailand, 1938–1963
Emma Masterson
9 Context Specificity of Economic Research: The Example 187
of Corruption Research in Southeast Asia
Krisztina Kis-Katos and Günther G. Schulze
Part III 211
10 Grounding Governance Research in Southeast Asia: 213
A Framework for Controlled Multimethod Policy Analysis
Christian von Lübke
11 Qualitative Comparative Analysis for Southeast Asian 233
Studies: Prospects for Policy Analysis of Southeast Asian
Regionalism
Raul L. Cordenillo
12 Transcultural Ethnography: Reciprocity in 253
Indonesian-German Tandem Research
Judith Schlehe and Sita Hidayah
13 Inter-Referencing Southeast Asia: Absence, Resonance 273
and Provocation
Chua Beng Huat
Bibliography 289
Index 322
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
Figure I.1 Methodology and knowledge formation 8
Figure 8.1 A dilemma of competing elites 1938–1944 and 181
1948–1957
Figure 8.2 An assuring game of trust 1957–1963 182
Figure 8.3 An extensive-form game 1938–1963 182
Figure 10.1 Political agency and governance outcomes 228
Figure 11.1 Set memberships 238
Figure 11.2 Relations between sets 240
Figure 11.3 Necessary and sufficient conditions 241
Figure 11.4 ASEAN membership 242
Tables
Table I.1 Different orientations towards “contextual 17
embeddedness”
Table 7.1 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index 146
(2013)
Table 10.1 Controlled case selection—Measuring agency 218
effects across paired units of observation
Table 10.2 Distinct leadership pairs in West Sumatra and 224
Central Java
Table 10.3 Comparative government performance in 2005 226
Table 10.4 Results of OLS regressions—Public performance 229
Table 11.1 Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) 247
in ASEAN and Southeast Asia
Table 11.2 Set membership scores 248
Table 11.3 Truth table 249
vii
Acknowledgements
This volume greatly benefited from a series of methodology workshops
organized by the University of Freiburg’s Southeast Asian Studies
Program titled “Grounding Area Studies in Social Practice.” Apart from
training students and scholars in new methodologies, the workshop
series explored to what extent methods established in mainstream dis-
ciplines in the so-called West can be applied to a culturally different
context. How does the tension between universal and particular forms
of knowledge bear on methodology and how do we adjust research
practice in accordance to the particular political, social and cultural set-
tings we study? Raising this question brought divergent disciplines and
methodological schools into dialogue: Scholars of a more hermeneutic,
interpretative orientation and scholars more rooted in positivist epis-
temology. In addition to this, an international conference held in
Freiburg in May 2012, titled “Methodology in Southeast Asian Studies:
Grounding Research – Mixing Methods” addressed these questions and
sought to assess the explanatory scope of variegated methodological
approaches to the study of Southeast Asian societies.
This methodological discourse could hardly have evolved into its
current form without the generous financial support provided by the
Federal German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the
Ministry’s innovative and unprecedented Area Studies Program which
started in 2009. The Ministry’s funding enabled us to organize no less
than 20 methodology workshops and the international conference
mentioned above. Aside from the Ministry we thank our workshop lec-
turers, all of them renowned experts in a specific methodology, and
the participants and panelists of the international conference. Some of
the conference papers found their way into this volume. We also thank
our research assistants, who have contributed in various ways to the
many technical chores executed before such a volume can go to print.
In particular, we would like to express our gratitude to Vanessa
Guinan-Bank, Felix Idelberger, Rafael Steinhilber and Ann-Kathrin
Weber. Last, but not least, we thank Patrick Hesse and Julian Topf for
their competent proof-reading of the manuscript.
viii
Notes on the Contributors
Chua Beng Huat, Provost Professor, is concurrently Head of
Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and
Cultural Studies in Asia and Research Cluster Leader at the Asia
Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He is a founding
co-executive editor of thejournalInter-Asia Cultural Studies.
Raul L. Cordenillois a joint doctoral candidate in International and
European Studies at the KU Leuven and the Antwerp Centre for
Institutions and Multilevel Politics at Antwerp University. He is also
the Head of Inter-Regional Dialogue, Partnerships and Advocacy at
International IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance).
In this capacity, he manages the Inter-Regional Democracy Resource
Centre, the full-time secretariat of the Inter-Regional Dialogue on
Democracy, a leading platform for engagement among regional organ-
izations on democracy and related issues. Before joining International
IDEA, he was Assistant Director at the ASEAN Secretariat.
Goh Beng-Lan is an Associate Professor and currently Head of the
Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of
Singapore. She researches issues of knowledge production, intellectual
history, urbanism, postcolonial identities and the visual arts in
Southeast Asia. She is the editor ofDecentering and Diversifying Southeast
Asian Studies: Perspectives from the Region(2011).
Eric Haanstad is a Principal Researcher in the Institute of Social and
Cultural Anthropology (Institut für Ethnologie) at the University of
Freiburg, where he received research and writing support from the
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF). His research
focuses on theatrical performance and state security in Thailand and
Cambodia, cross-cultural conceptions of temporality, and the aesthet-
ics of violence. Recently published book chapters include “A Brief
History of the Thai Police” in Knights of the Realm: Thailand’s Military
and Police, Then and Now (ed. Paul Chambers) and “Thai Police in
Refractive Cultural Practice” in Police in Practice: Policing and
Contemporary Governance(ed. William Garriott).
ix
